Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked convulsed with anger at the text of Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev’s tweet. It seems that Bar-Lev, with such chutzpah, dared to mention “settler violence” when speaking to a senior American diplomatic official. Oy, the sacrilege.
Shaked immediately accused Bar-Lev of being “confused,” and rushed to crown the settlers with a number of shining titles: They are “the salt of the earth,” she stated, and also “the successors of the pioneers.”
This nonsense of "the successors of the pioneers” has accompanied the settlers since the day they were born, the day after the 1967 rout. Devoured by jealousy of the historic pioneers, and embarrassed that the religious public mostly had no part in the pioneer legend, they hurried to appropriate some of the spirit of “tower and stockade.” With this help, they hoped to finally be able to hold their bent heads high.
This delusion has been refuted time after time, and there is no point in repeating it. The ascetic, pitiful pioneers of the past were “low-cost pioneers,” they brought sandwiches from home and paid for all their needs with their own labor. While today, these "business-class pioneers" are spoiled children. Everything is served to them on the public’s silver platter. Their livelihoods, protection, housing, infrastructure and services – all rely heavily, gallingly on the taxpayers’ pockets. If they were really “the successors of the pioneers,” and if not for the governments that maintained them, they would have continued celebrating the loud Passover seder nights in Beit Hadassah in Hebron, abusing the random Palestinian here and there, and nothing more.
Shaked, as we have said, heaped the title “salt of the earth” on the settlers. And this time, for a change, there is a bit of truth in what she said. Sowing salt on conquered land was in the distant past a ceremony and symbol for the decree of annihilation, desolation and barrenness of the conquered territory. The biblical Avimelech sowed salt on the ruins of Nablus, the Roman conquerors spread salt on Carthage. This is exactly the same thing Shaked’s “salt of the earth” are doing. With a hatchet in one hand, a bottle of gasoline in the other, and a car to run over sheep and steal harvests, they try with all their might to fulfill their historic mission: to sow suffering and despair on all their surroundings.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who reprimanded Internal Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev, for talking about "settler violence." Among other things, she claimed that they were the "salt of the earth", Credit: Marc Israel Sellem
Embarrassingly, the source of the _expression_ “salt of the earth” is actually in the New Testament, may God have mercy. With these words, Jesus described his most loyal disciples (see the Sermon on the Mount). And on this matter Shaked is right too: There truly is great similarity between the Christian “salt of the earth” and the Jewish “salt of the earth.” Both are certain that the other’s messiah is a false messiah, both are certain that the redemption and truth can be found only in their possession, and both are ready to commit any abomination in their messiah’s name.
And one more little thing on the matter of salt. Shaked hotly insists that she is “secular,” but as far as I’m concerned, she is about as secular as Rabbi Meir Kahane was – but that’s not the issue. If she was only a bit more religious, if she only kept kosher a little, she would certainly know that salt has a very important role in koshering meat. Its role: causing the blood to flow out of the meat.
Once again Shaked is right. After all, it is hard to imagine a more faithful, precise description of the essence of what our "salt of the earth” do: Sowing it on the face of the occupied land, spreading it on every high hill and under every leafy tree, waiting a bit before quickly carrying out its purpose: to spill blood and let it flow.
Sometimes it’s their blood, but mostly it’s the blood of others. And it’s all strictly kosher.